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November 20, 2017

LIVE: 2017 MATERNAL AND NEONATAL SUMMIT

Together with the Quezon City Health Department (QCHD), United Laboratories, Inc. (Unilab, Inc.) is hosting a 2017 Maternal and Neonatal Summit which will be held on November 20, 2017, Monday, 11:00 a.m. at Sequoia Hotel located at Mo. Ignacia Street cor. Timog Avenue, Quezon City.

The said summit is an annual event which aims to enable and equip stakeholders of health in Quezon City to implement programs that will reduce the incidences of maternal and neonatal mortality. The highlight of the activity is the presentation of the result of the 2017 Seal of Excellence program which identifies private lying-ins that are fully compliant to the Department of Health’s standards, a testament to the city’s commitment to champion the welfare of mothers and their children.

This year, QCHD and Unilab, are also pleased to introduce Seal of Excellence (SOE) Plus, a new tool developed to monitor maternal and child health progress by harnessing the power of technology. SOE Plus allows clinics to log health information of mother and/or child, and regularly monitor their progress. This electronic database is directly synchronized with the QCHD database, so that data is also regularly updated.

Gallery:

Safe Birth Lying-in Clinic has been a consistent Seal of Excellence Awardee. It has four branches in Quezon City. An SoE awardee must be able to achieve all MNCHN indicators such as the Health Department’s License to Operate (LTO); PhilHealth Accreditation, Sanitary Permit and membership in the City’s Service Delivery Network (SDN).

OB gynecologists and midwives take care of the patients in Safe Birth Lying-in Clinics. It is also PhilHealth accredited, thus, pregnant women who have had deliveries in Safe Birth are covered by the no-balance billing scheme.

A private lying-in that has been awarded the Seal of Excellence must have adequate facilities and trained healthcare workers to be able to respond sufficiently to the needs of pregnant women. Photo shows the patients’ room of JMS Lying-in clinic in Novaliches, one of this year’s Seal of Excellence awardees.

Livestream:

Highlights:

MinTS birth referral system – is a birth and registration tracking system. Only pertinent data is important in the civil registry. This should make birth registries easier for parents so that there are no late.

The SOE was established to encourage private lying-in centers to improve their facilities and services to expectant mothers. Based on the data, this has been successful.

Those who haven’t shown improvement regarding their services based on the SOE standards have been closed down.

Incentives are also being given to private lying-in centers who give effort to maintain the Seal Of Excellence award. 4 years of consistent services/awards will earn them the incentives listed by the government.

The next step once all services and data has been organized/fixed, these lying-in facilities will be connected to the main QC database. That way, mothers will be able to visit any lying-in hospitals within QC and will have no more problems regarding their private records.

There’s an ordinance to institutionalize the program. This is in partnership with the public and private sector. – this isn’t just a single program but a series of programs from different groups. It is a continuous line of events. This is institutionalized not because of politicians but because of career officers that have started and implemented these services. Politicians will come and go but our career officials are here to stay.

When you focus on a problem, you will find out that it is related to other concerns.

It is our goal that this program will be replicated in other cities and later on in the provinces. There’s a high impact on our constituencies. In fact this will make our services better.

Sister City Initiative: The neighboring cities should be able to communicate. That way these cities will share in the database and services that has been started by this initiative. The SOE is based on national standards by the DOH.

SOE’s List of Winners for 2017:

TheMaternal, Newborn, Child Health & Nutrition (MNCHN) Program:

Quezon City is rolling out online information exchange database that seeks to provide quicker and more accessible maternal and neonatal health services to its citizens.

The Quezon City Government headed by Mayor Herbert M. Bautista, thru the QC Health Department (QCHD), in partnership with United Laboratories Inc. (Unilab, Inc.), the leading healthcare company in the country, launched during the 5th Maternal and Neonatal Health Summit the “Seal of Excellence” (SoE) Plus as part of its continuing efforts to innovate its health services to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. In the said event, 44 private lying-in clinics were recognized as Seal of Excellence awardees for being fully compliant to the standards set by the Department of Health, PhilHealth and the city’s local permit issuances.

The SoE PLUS allows SoE-awarded lying-in clinics in Quezon City to immediately synchronize via internet their respective postpartum and newborn profiles using the prescribed reporting template with the local government’s database.

QC Mayor Herbert M. Bautista has this “marching order” to the City’s Health Department: “We want to involve the private sector in the governance side of city government. We are now 3 million Filipinos in Quezon City and we need the participation and cooperation of the private sector to address the challenges of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) na bumaba yung mortality rate ng nanay sa panganganak at ng mga batang namamatay. Layunin din natin na mabawasan ng 30-40% na hanggang ngayon ay nanganganak using traditional means. We started with lying in clinics but we would like to expand this to other specialized health services.”

The implementation of SoE PLUS is part of the QC government’s expansion of the SoE program, which recognizes private lying-in clinics in the city that have achieved essential Maternal Newborn Child Health and Nutrition (MNCHN) indicators.

“This innovation shall make available all necessary, quality, safe and free services for both mother and newborn as part of their continuum of care from the private lying in clinic to their respective health center,” says Dr. Verdades Peña Linga, City Health Officer III of Quezon City.

The Seal of Excellence is a City Leadership and Governance Program (CLGP) initiative of the QC Government, which aims to improve constant and consistent availability and access to safe, effective, efficient, youth-oriented and gender-transformative health services.

“It also aspires to enhance community partnership development in pursuing sustainability of the MNCHN Service Delivery Network (SDN) in terms of coordination, implementation, and delivery of services, maintenance of quality-assured products and services, resource mobilization, monitoring and evaluation,” Dr. Peña Linga adds.

“The Seal of Excellence is a testament to public-private partnerships that can work efficiently to improve public health services. Being in the business of health such as running a private lying-in clinic is a critical responsibility as it is supposed to provide adequate care and services to pregnant women and their infants. Therefore, it must be able to fully comply with national and local government standards,” says Claire D. Papa, External Affairs Head of Unilab.

Since the launching of SoE last year, a total of 99 private lying in clinics were monitored and evaluated twice a year by Midwife Supervisors and Sanitary Inspectors.

“In 2016, only 23% were SOE awardees while 17% were lacking in some requirements and 56% are poor in compliance,” Dr. Peña Linga announced. “An improvement was evident this year. Out of the 83 private lying in clinics which remained operational, 44, or 53%, have outstanding performance, while 5% Needs Improvement and 37% were poor in compliance,” she added.

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